Tag Archive: Princess Diana

Well it’s about time that Kate Middleton gave birth. The name hasn’t been relished yet but they had a boy and it weighs 8 pound 4 ounces. Everyone has been waiting anxiously for the baby’s arrival (or in my mom’s case for the baby’s gender to relished). I just hope the baby is ready because he’ll be the most photographed baby ever. So what is ya’ll take on Kate and William’s new bundle of joy? please comment and let me know but please no negative comments.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his governament and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Jesus replied, ” ‘ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greastest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your meighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

hello! how are ya’ll? I’m back! I just thought I’d post something else before I get for good tonight. Well, today was about the same as any other day for me.(boring) One thing I did do ,however,that I haven’t done in a while was go to the beach. I’m really not much of a swimmer, but today while I was doing some house work I got this eurge to go to the beach, so I did. Lets just say I had fun. I’m not sure if I’ll go back to the beach this summer, but hey you never right? 🙂

In other news…….I may be going to a wedding either in July or August I’m not really sure though, so that’s something to look forward to.

KIRKUK, Iraq – A triple bombing killed 27 people and wounded scores outside a police station Thursday, heightening tensions in a northern Iraqi city already on edge after a string of kidnappings and attacks against security officers.

The new violence adds to strain that already besets Kirkuk, a city that has long been plagued by ethnic squabbles over land and oil fields. Iraqi and U.S. officials long have feared Kirkuk and the disputed lands surrounding it — sandwiched between Arab villages and an autonomous Kurdish region — could destabilize the country if American forces leave at the end of this year on schedule.

“This shows there is no government in this country,” railed Ahmed Salih, 55, sitting next to a hospital bed where his 30-year-old son, Omar Ahmed, lay with bandages around his head and legs. “How such an incident can take place at the police station, where there is security, is nonsense.”

The first blast, a bomb stuck to a car in a parking lot in central Kirkuk, lured policemen out of their fortified headquarters to investigate around 9 a.m., said police Capt. Abdul Salam Zangana. Three minutes later, a second blast rocked the lot when a car packed with explosives blew up in the crowd of police.

“The boots of police officers were scattered at the scene,” said one a police officer, Ahmed Hamid, who survived the strike. “I saw a severed hand on the ground.”

The third bomb, planted on a road leading to a hospital, set cars and trucks ablaze when it exploded about 550 yards (500 meters) away less than an hour later. Zangana said it targeted a police patrol near a mosque.

In all, the blasts killed 27 — most of them police officers — and wounded at least 60 people, said provincial health director Siddiq Omar. Eyewitness Adnan Karim described the scene as “a chaos of terror and fear.”

Located 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Kirkuk has been an ethnic flashpoint for years among Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen, who each claim the oil-rich city as their own. Kirkuk’s two largest ethnic groups have their own competing security forces — the Arab national police and the predominantly Kurdish peshmerga forces — and that division has stoked tensions.

Within the last 10 days alone, police patrols in Kirkuk have been targeted in five roadside bombings and an Iraqi army base has been hit by two Kaytusha rockets, said city police Col. Sherzad Mofari.

In Mosul, another major city within the disputed territories, four Iraqi army soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb Thursday afternoon, a policeman said.

Also, Kirkuk kidnappers also killed a policeman and a Christian construction worker. The latter was dismembered after his attackers gave up on collecting the $100,000 random they had demanded.

Mofari blamed the violent upsurge on al-Qaida and its allies in Iraq, which seek to stir up Kirkuk’s tensions. “They are trying to keep this instability of security in the city for a long time,” he said.

American military commanders have long worried that the simmering fight over Kirkuk could provoke violence that could spread to the rest of the country. For the last several years, U.S. troops have worked to build partnerships between Iraqi army forces and the Kurdish security forces, known as peshmerga, to secure the swath of disputed lands that stretches over three northern Iraqi provinces — and over some of the world’s most lucrative oil reserves.

But as the U.S. troops withdraw, there is little indication the Kurdish-Arab partnerships will hold, and officials gloomily predict they could return to violence if the Americans leave as scheduled on Dec. 31.

In February, for example, the Kurdish government sent thousands of peshmerga around Kirkuk, claiming to be protecting the city from planned demonstrations that might turn violent. But the incursion scared Arab and Turkomen residents, who called it a thinly veiled attempt to surround Kirkuk with Kurdish forces. The peshmerga pulled back a few weeks later and the crisis passed without bloodshed.

In Baghdad, lawmakers are still haggling over rules for taking a national census that that would determine Kirkuk’s residency — and therefore which ethnic group can rightfully claim power — trying to shape the eligibility requirements to best suit their constituents.

Hours after the bombings, the U.N. envoy to Iraq, Ad Melkert, called on all sides to quickly settle the disputes to prove that Iraqi leaders want to ensure security and stability across the country. The U.N. has been working with Kirkuk’s leaders for years to settle the dispute over the territory and get the census taken, but few believe it will be resolved any time soon.

At one hospital where victims were taken, some said they were close to giving up hope.

“This is because of carelessness of security,” said Awaz Kamal, 45, crying as she watched her son, policeman Saman Salih, being prepared for an operation to remove shrapnel from his stomach.

Around them, bloodied and bandaged victims lay on the floor, because the beds were already filled with patients.

Then a police truck pulled into the hospital driveway with four bodies lying motionless in the truck bed. It was not clear whether they were alive or dead.

The royal wedding didn’t just launch Kate Middleton the Duchess of Cambridge into the spotlight. The extravaganza watched around the world made her younger sister Pippa, also decked out in a stunning white Alexander McQueen dress, into an overnight celebrity.

Those who know Pippa, officially Philippa Charlotte Middleton, would not be surprised by her sudden celebrity. Born in 1983 and raised in Bucklebury, Berkshire, the tanner of the two sisters easily outshone her older sibling when the two children attended the girls’ boarding school Downe House. According to Katie Nicholl, author of “The Making of a Royal Romance,” “Pippa was the more beautiful of the two of them at that age. But Catherine was more determined, which seemed to set her apart.”

Pippa followed her 14-year-old sister to the prep school Marlborough College in Wiltshire, England, where Nicholl wrote of the sisters, “They were both pretty and very close…they were tall and slim, lean and athletic.”

Plum Sykes observed in the Daily Mail that Pippa gets all of the fun of being close to the monarchy minus any of the “bad bits.” Adding, “Pippa is the luckiest one of all. She gets all the right sort of attention from men, fashion designers, hostesses and things, and doesn’t have any of the duties.”

The stunner was named Tatler magazine’s No.1 society singleton in 2008. She is also a good shot: In the same year the multi-talented Middleton bagged 23 birds, including duck, pheasant, and partridge, while on a weekend holiday in Scotland.

Pippa may also have paved the way for her sister’s chic engagement look. The fashionista was photographed backstage at an Issa show wearing the designer’s wrap dress, similar to the look Kate later wore to announce her plans to marry Prince William.

With Pippa’s prospects looking so good, she may soon be donning the Issa dress to make an announcement of her own.

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Technically, it was an act of treason. Britain’s Treason Felony Act of 1848 forbids subjects of the queen from calling for the abolition of the monarchy. The law is no longer enforced, which is good news for the several dozen Brits in central London on Friday who placed a Queen Elizabeth II impersonator in the gallows with a sign on her head saying “Best Before: Circa 1700.”

The mock imprisonment was part of the “Not the Royal Wedding Street Party” hosted by Republic, a campaign group that wishes to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state. The 14,000-strong group wants to strip the Queen of her remaining “prerogative powers,” such as the requirement that parliamentary bills have her formal assent before they become law, and her ability to disband the British Parliament and the legislatures of several Commonwealth countries (which her acting Governor General in Australia did in 1975 after the prime minister refused to call a general election). And it’s seen the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton as an opportunity to push its agenda forward. (Timeless Portraits: Photos of All Time Great Royal Weddings)

Talk of revolution and mock gallows aside, the Republican street party was hardly a Cromwellian affair. Unlike the army of Oliver Cromwell, which briefly overthrew the monarchy in the 17th century in two bloody civil wars, these rebels were a jovial, good-humored bunch. Cucumber sandwiches were served, a face-painting artist made the rounds, and a band jammed in the middle of the street.

If turn-out is any indication of interest, however, the movement may have to wait longer than that. Hundreds of thousands of Britons took to the streets around Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey to cheer the royal couple on Friday. Republic’s rival fete attracted only around a thousand people, according to the group. But far from sulking like the losing side of a nationwide popularity contest, many at the party claimed that the massive royal wedding would paradoxically boost their cause by exposing the absurdity of Britain’s antiquated political system.

“The more scrutiny we can place on the royal family the better,” said David James, 27, who pointed to references in the British press of Kate Middleton as a “commoner” because she does not come from a royal lineage. “The whole idea of noble blood – of a class of people intrinsically superior to the rest – is antithetical to a democracy, and this wedding will help expose that.”

Republic was not the only outfit enjoying some irreverent anti-monarchy protesting on the royal family’s big day. The liberal British newspaper The Guardian allowed digital readers to join the rebel cause by signing up to send the couple one of three gifts: a home-assembly guillotine kit, keys to an exile’s apartment in Elba (the Mediterranean island to where Napoleon was exiled) and a biography of Charles I (the monarch beheaded by Cromwell).

And the sentiment stretches beyond Britain. Republic was joined at its street party on Friday by representatives of anti-monarchy movements in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. On Saturday, this Alliance of European Republican Movements – as the group calls itself – will hold a conference on how to mobilize European populations against the vestiges of absolute rule in what is now the world’s most democratic continent. “We had a similar situation in Sweden when our royal married a non-blue-blood,” says David Hesslefors of the Swedish Republican Association, referring to the marriage last year of Princess Victoria of Sweden to her personal trainer. “But such distinctions can only help expose the absurdity of a situation of having a hereditary head of state.” (See why Sweden wanted Julian Assange arrested.)

Hesslefors says William and Kate’s large following among Brits will draw attention to the monarchy, which he believes cannot survive under continued scrutiny. “British Republicans are lucky that William and Kate are so popular,” he adds, before pausing. “Or at least that’s the theory.”

The royal family has proved yet again that it’s rather good at weddings. At marriage, however, it sucks. While it was a safe bet that the nuptials of Prince William and Catherine Middleton would come off without a hitch, it’s an open question whether their lifelong union will be quite as silky. After the royal horses have been watered and the bridal gown sent to the dry cleaner, there are still two people who have to figure out how to spend their lives together, under epic scrutiny, in an era when more than 40% of first marriages go belly-up.

Unfortunately, one of the best predictors of marital dissolution is whether the couple come from homes of divorce. Kate Middleton’s parents appear to dwell together amiably enough among the hedgerows of Bucklebury. But William’s father, the Prince of Wales, is divorced and remarried. His mother – you may have heard about this – died in a car accident with her then boyfriend, a man many said she was dating only to irritate her former in-laws. William’s uncle the Duke of York is divorced. His aunt the Princess Royal is divorced and remarried. The Queen’s sister Margaret was also divorced. The only British institution that can rival the House of Windsor for spectacular splits is the Royal Ballet. (See pictures of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding day.)

On Diana’s side, William’s uncle Earl Spencer announced in February that he was getting married for the third time. So it’s safe to say William does not have a lot of what marital therapists call model relationships on which he can base his wedded life. Or even his potential divorced life.

But before we all send pre-emptive donations to the Kate Middleton Postmarital Comfort Fund, the differences between William’s marriage and his parents’ should be noted. Diana was just 20 and had been going on furtive dates with Charles for about a year, not exactly an ideal way of getting to know someone. He was 32 and getting hitched for all the wrong reasons, including that he was expected to sire an heir. William was born less than a year after their wedding. Not only were there yawning gaps in their expectations and backgrounds, but they also had little time to figure each other out.

Kate, 29, is older than William, 28, by a few months. They’ve known each other for nine years and been a couple for seven. While Diana had no idea what she was getting herself into, Kate has had time to get used to her fiancÉ’s family business – not to mention the paparazzi.

And while one can never really be equal with a future King, the two met on even ground: they were students at St. Andrews university in Scotland. They graduated the same day. Her family has money, and she had a preamble of a career.

Royal pains notwithstanding, statistics are on their side. College-educated couples who wed after age 26 split up more rarely than those with less education. (Diana didn’t finish high school.)

More important, probably, is Will’s wealth. Well-off couples marry more often and divorce less often than those who are broke. While the stresses on the newlyweds will be legion, they won’t include tiffs about who’s washing up or whether they can afford a sitter so they can sneak off for a quickie in the Throne Room.

Which brings us to the other bogeyman in contemporary domestic life: infidelity. Charles’ feelings for Camilla Parker Bowles, his former mistress and current wife, played a big role in the unraveling of his family. But it’s hard to imagine either William or Kate having a bit on the side without being detected by someone in the omnipresent swarm of paparazzi, tabloid hacks, royal retainers and random citizens with smart phones and Twitter accounts. The British secret service is just not that adroit.

The erstwhile Kate Middleton will have a steep learning curve as she grafts herself onto her new family. But the royals have had something of an education too. The status of women was transformed between the Queen’s marriage and that of her children, taking the transaction of marriage with it. Charles and Diana divorced in 1992, just a year before divorce hit its highest level in Britain and just as many of the gains women had made during the earlier years of the feminist movement were hitting home, literally.

No longer were princesses prepared to sit quietly by, turning a blind eye to concubines or crankiness for Queen and country. And no longer did the women of Britain expect them to. What might ultimately save Kate and Will’s marriage are the royal wives who went before. When they willingly walked out the castle doors and took the people with them, the Queen learned a little something about female power.